Closed Hearts (14 page)

Hunger drove me to keep searching the cabinets. “So, won’t it be obvious if I jack Vellus? Won’t his jacked thoughts echo on the boom mics? Someone’s sure to notice that on the tru-cast recordings, even if I jack everyone in the room to ignore it.” I found a bag of homemade brownies, inhaled the mouthwatering chocolate scent, hesitated, then put it back on the shelf.

“Which is why you won’t be jacking him,” Julian said.

“You’re handling him instead?” When Julian was in my dad’s head, I couldn’t tell he was being jacked at all, except that he had instantly lost the desire to whisk me away from Julian’s hideout. Having Julian handle Vellus wasn’t a bad plan.

“It should be undetectable,” Julian said. “Especially if I don’t have to handle him too much. Depends how strong his anti-jacker views are. If it’s simply political posturing, I can handle him from farther away. But if his campaign to lock us up is coming from a deep-seated fear or hatred, I might have to get closer.” He leaned back in his chair. “Hinckley can help us at the Detention Center once the prisoners are released, but I truly wish we had Sasha with us. It’s a tragedy to have an opportunity like this and not have him here to help.”

“Why? What can he do?” I kept searching the cabinets and hit the mother lode with a pantry shelf filled with cans and boxes.

“Sasha is a scribe.” As if that explained anything.

“Which is?” I pulled a box of wheat crackers from the pantry and rejoined Julian at the table.

His face grew serious. “A scribe completely rewrites a person’s mind.”

“Every jacker knows how to wipe memories,” I said around the crackers in my mouth.

“A scribe doesn’t wipe memories,” he said. “They rewrite the entire brain—memories, stored knowledge, learned behavior. There are a lot of things that we think are intuitive, like how to walk, that are actually learned behaviors tucked in the recesses of our brains.”

I thought about my complete inability to park in tight spaces—clearly a learned ability I hadn’t quite mastered. “Still, isn’t that just a really big memory wipe?” I asked. “I mean, if I had enough time, I could probably wipe all your memories.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me, watching me stuff in more crackers.

“Ok, maybe not
your
memories,” I said. “What is the deal with your head, anyway? Why the horror show? And won’t that be a problem when we’re at the Trib Tower?”

“It won’t be a problem.” He dismissed my question with a wave. I wanted to ask Julian more about how his strange brain worked, but he kept talking. “Sasha’s scribing is much more complete than a memory wipe. Everything is gone, right down to key things like personality. It’s like reformatting the storage banks of the brain.” Even Julian looked chilled by the idea, but it sent shivers right down to my toes. “All you are is what you have learned, from the time you start to crawl until the news you saw last night. A scribe takes that away.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that, you’re a different person.”

The shivers worked their way back up and raised the hairs on the back of my neck so they were sticking out like the rest. “And Sasha does this?”

“Yes.” Julian’s soft face grew sharp, bringing out edges I hadn’t noticed before. “It’s a very powerful weapon. One I don’t use lightly, but it would be incredibly useful if we could use it on someone like Vellus. And I think Kestrel is especially deserving of it, don’t you?”

I couldn’t argue with that, although it seemed less cruel to just kill him. If you killed someone, that made you a murderer… unless it was in self-defense. But this scribing thing? What did that make you? If you erased someone’s being, what was the right name for that?

I thought of Sasha’s dark, empty eyes, and the crackers ran dry in my mouth. I slid the box away and swallowed down the last chalky bits. “Well, it’s just going to be me and you in there. If you can handle Vellus into releasing the prisoners, great. But what if he has mindguard security? Or do you think the most famous anti-jacker politician in the country won’t use mindguards?”

“No, you’re probably right,” Julian said. “He’ll have mindguard security, but they won’t be able to defend themselves against my handling, and they can’t jack into your mind. It will be easy for you to keep them under control once I’ve reduced their instinct to defend themselves.” He captured me with his glacier-blue eyes. “We make quite a team, you know.”

I ignored his soft tone. I wasn’t part of any “team” with him, except for this one time. “So, our plan is to get in, handle Vellus to release the prisoners, and then leave?”

“With any luck, we’ll have everyone out in time for lunch.” He smirked, like this was a game he was looking forward to playing, then glanced at the time on the wall screen. “Are you ready?”

I left the crackers sitting on the kitchen table, hoping Olivia might eat them when she showed again.

Julian managed to hail an autocab with his phone, even though Raf and I hadn’t found one for miles the day before. He seemed to have technology and resources that reached everywhere. The autocab dropped us downtown at the Trib Tower, its ornate limestone blocks glinting above us in the early morning light. The last time I was in Maria’s office, I’d had to leave by hydrocopter off the roof to avoid the protesters beating on the revolving doors of the lobby. Today there was no one, only a few businessmen fighting a gusty warm breeze off the Chicago River.

I could reach the entire Trib Tower building and jack any reader inside, but I wasn’t sure how far Julian could reach. “Maybe you can handle Vellus from here, out on the street,” I whispered with my head bent close to Julian. We had to be careful that no one saw us talking, and I wasn’t about to link into Julian’s mind again.

“Unless they’re holding the press conference in the lobby, it’s too far for me to handle him from here.” Which I guessed meant Julian’s range wasn’t any farther than a normal jacker’s. He went back to checking his phone, sending another scrit to Hinckley, who was stationed outside the Detention Center.

Maybe Julian and I could stay to the back of Maria’s office, within range for him, but out of sight so no one would recognize my face. When I was camped out there with the changelings, waiting for their parents to claim them, the cast room seemed to take up the entire floor.

“We can’t link into Maria’s head to talk, you know,” I said. Julian kept his attention on Hinckley’s scrits. “It will just give us away if she knows too much of what’s going on.”

“Agreed.” He peeked at me through his lashes. “Maybe we should have secret signals. One wink means jack, two winks means don’t jack.”

I wrinkled my nose. There was no part of this that was funny.

“Or,” he said, “you could simply scrit me your thoughts, if you have an urgent need to share them.” He returned his attention to the phone.

“What if Vellus brings a whole squad of mindguards?” When my dad came into the mages’ converted factory, Julian seemed distracted into losing his grip on Molloy. Maybe. “Are you sure you can manage that?”

“I can manage it.” He didn’t look up.

“What about when they realize we’re jackers? What are you going to do? Give everyone a sudden urge to fulfill the mating instinct?”

He finally peered up, looking affronted, which would have been funny if I wasn’t dead serious. My dad and Raf could be locked up in Vellus’s prison, and this was my one chance to get them out.

“If things get out of control, I’m pretty sure I could induce a riot.” His shoulders stiffened. “In any event, the mindguards won’t know
I’m
a jacker, although I’m sure
you’ll
be hard to miss. But it won’t matter. I’ll handle any panic out of them; you take care of the jacking part. Just keep calm, and it will be fine. How about you earn your keep in this operation by doing some reconnaissance?”

I must have touched a nerve.

I shook my head and reached into the lobby. The guard was simply a mindreader, and we hadn’t caught his notice yet. I mentally pushed past the lobby to the cast station, where a crew was prepping for the interview with Vellus. They were all mindreaders intent on getting the lighting set and the cameras ready, so that must be where we would do the interview, instead of Maria’s office like I had thought. I flitted across the ten floors up to Maria’s office: nothing but readers, mostly reporters working the Saturday tru-cast. No sign of any jackers: mindguards, rooks, or otherwise. On the tenth floor, I searched but couldn’t find Maria. I had a small panic moment until I pulled back and scanned the elevators and found her whizzing to the ground floor.

“There are no jackers inside,” I said, “but Maria’s almost here. We should go in.”

Julian pocketed his phone, and we pushed through the revolving doors, automatically linking into the security guard’s mind and rooking as mindreading junior reporters. At least, I linked in. I couldn’t detect Julian’s presence in the guard’s mind. I glanced at Julian, but he was focused on the elevators, which had just slid open.

Maria stepped out in her heels and black tailored suit, camera ready and clutching a scribepad. Her bright red shoes clicked across the marbled lobby floor. She passed through the weapons detector, eyes darting over Julian and then settling on me, with a skeptical look for the hair and tattoo. Talking out loud with her was out of the question, so I linked into her mind. Her normal mind-scent hinted of freshly cut apples, but today a sour nervousness was laced through it. There was no trace of Julian.

Hello, Katelyn
. She concentrated on my name as her thoughts broadcast to the guard. He didn’t look up. She handed me a thin, filmy badge.
Don’t lose this.
The words
Katelyn O’Hara PRESS
were stamped across an official
Chicago Tribune
logo. It was an ionic patch that would adhere once pressed, so I smoothed it onto my poodle-like blouse.

Julian gave a slight bow of his head.
It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lopez,
I heard faintly through Maria’s thoughts. He must have linked strongly enough, just short of jacking, that I was able to hear his linked thoughts. How could he be in her mind at all without me sensing him? Julian was a puzzle that was hurting my brain.

Glad you could join us, Michael
. She didn’t have to concentrate on his name as much. For all she knew, Julian’s name was Michael.
You come highly recommended from your junior reporting at the
Morning Star. She smoothed a badge across his collared shirt that had
Michael Madigan PRESS
stamped over the logo of the
Morning Star
.

Thank you,
Julian thought with a smile.
I’m hoping to get a promotion soon.

I resisted rolling my eyes.

Once Vellus arrives
, Maria thought,
I’ll let him get settled in before I pound him with questions. Do you have a list of people who have been detained without due process?

That must be the angle Maria was going for.

Yes.
Julian pulled out his phone.
Our research shows there are a dozen jackers as well as one reader who were illegally arrested in the sweep. I can cast it to you, if you’d like.

Maria tapped her scribepad and accepted the list Julian cast from his phone. She briefly looked over it, then closed it. Probably didn’t want to linger on the names there.
Rafael Lobos Santos. Patrick Moore.
My throat was closing up, so I tried not to think of them too.

I have several pointed questions planned for Vellus,
Maria thought.
I’ve even arranged for a Truth Magistrate to verify Vellus’s answers. Hopefully that will put pressure on him to release the prisoners who have been detained unlawfully. I expect you two to observe, take notes, whatever. You need to take care of yourselves. Understood?

She meant that she didn’t want to know anything about our plans. It would be no small feat for Maria to grill Vellus without giving us away—or herself as a jacker collaborator—with the live boom mics picking up her thoughts. She didn’t need our plans literally on her mind.

I smiled, appreciative of the risk she was taking for us.
Understood.

She turned on her spiked heel and stalked back toward the weapons detector. Julian and I hurriedly followed. The guard looked up and Maria waved to him.

Just bringing my two young assistants back for the big interview, George,
Maria thought.

Sure thing, Ms. Lopez.
The guard’s face broke into a smile, and he didn’t bother to get up to check our credentials. I kept my eyes forward on Maria, hoping George wouldn’t recognize me. Maria breezed through the detector, past the elevators, and toward the large glass double doors of the tru-cast station. In curling ink-black letters, the words
Chicago Tribune New Metro Division
were etched into the glass. The doors slid open at Maria’s mental command and her heels muted as she stepped onto the soft, sound-absorbent carpeting of the cast station.

The high-ceilinged room was abuzz with screens and scrolling words and images. I had to blink a few times to orient myself. As I linked into all the readers’ minds, Maria headed straight for the brightly lit center dais, elevated above the rest of the room and nestled in a semicircle of twenty-foot-high screens. A live street shot of the Vellus Detention Center bustled behind her. The sun reflected off the sidewalk, and a couple dozen journalists milled around the guard gate, scribbling on their e-slates or getting stock footage with their ear cameras.